Museum of Natural Curiosity

Nate's brother Jonathan and his family spent some more time with us this last week. They even stayed with us at our house for a couple days. It was fun to have them here, hang out with them, and play games together. They also took their kids and Austin to the Treehouse Museum Tuesday afternoon while Nate and I went rock climbing nearby. Then we all went to Zuppas for dinner.

Originally we had actually planned to go the the Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point Tuesday afternoon. However, due to a few family members getting sick that were going to go with us, that was postponed until Thursday afternoon.

We had never been to this museum before, but as it turned out, it was a great place for kids to explore. The jungle area was particularly fun with its huge maze of ramps, slides, rope bridges, stairs, and other such things to climb around in. Austin loved to go through this area with his cousin Wilcken and with his parents.

It was particularly fun to pretend crash the plane suspended from the ceiling with his dad.

Some of the other activities there were fun for everyone to attempt, such as trying to jump like a frog, hang upside down like a sloth, or flap like a hummingbird:

Or, to just drawing a picture.

Austin also enjoyed building the huge blocks with his cousins.

Additionally, he enjoyed making a stop-motion video, listening to his heart beat, playing musical instruments, and doing a number of other interactive activities. We all had fun playing with the drum set:

Thanksgiving Week

As usual, our Thanksgiving break was very fun-filled.  We ate at Melissa's house along with most of my brothers.  Along with the traditional meal, the kids had fun making candy turkeys and going for a very brief walk to the park and back before freezing too much.

Walking to the park

Making Pinterest-inspired candy Turkeys

We spent Thursday evening with Rebecca's family in Murray for another round of pie, then stayed the night with her parents in Orem.  The next day we watched  her brother Nathan while her parents took her brother Ben to the airport.  Then we met up with my old roommates for a game of racquetball and some pizza with Tom's family.

On Saturday, we drove to Salt Lake again to see the lights at Temple Square.  We didn't stay long due to more bitterly freezing temperatures but it was fun.

After seeing the lights, we hung out at my sister Melissa's house again and had more pizza with a very comforting mug of hot chocolate!  Since we were all together for Thanksgiving, we decided to exchange Christmas gifts then instead of everyone mailing them.  We just did a white-elephant style gift exchange, but with nicer gifts.  I would have preferred just keeping our traditional rotation of giving, but I was out-voted on that one.  Maybe next year. 

As if we hadn't already driven enough, we went back again on Sunday morning for some family pictures and to go to church together so that we could all participate in Jonathan's daughter's baby blessing.

We don't get to see my out-of-state siblings very much, so it was good to spend a few days with them over Thanksgiving.

Busy October

I think that this month has been filled with a record number of Halloween activities for us. Austin loved it all, from our town's Halloween Carnival, to making Halloween sugar cookies, to the Pack Meeting Halloween Carnival.

Austin with his prizes after the town Halloween Carnival

There was also a fun Halloween pre-school activity in which Austin carved a small jack-o-lantern.

And of course there was the annual Peaden family Halloween party with dinner, jack-o-lanterns, costumes, doughnuts, and a movie.

Carving jack-o-lanterns

Then Austin had a blast trick-or-treating on Halloween night. He was absolutely bursting with excitement as he went skipping door to door down our street. When he saw other trick-or-treators out, he would yell to them from across the street saying, "Trick-or-Treat," or "Happy Halloween!" He made sure to point out all the Halloween decorations to us that people had out at their houses too.

In addition to all the Halloween festivities, there were a couple other exciting points during the month. Austin participated in his first Primary program, and we thoroughly enjoyed watching him in it! I also was very blessed to get a visit from a dear friend and former roommate Liz! She lives far from us now, so it was wonderful to visit with her, meet her husband Amman, and meet her son Sterling!

Here they are with a late wedding gift (& Austin, who insisted in being in the picture too):

Burch Creek Canyon Hike

This last weekend Nate and I were able to go hiking together. We decided to head up a trail we hadn't tried before, and so we hiked up Burch Creek Canyon. I was hoping our timing would be good for seeing the fall colors. As we started off, I wasn't sure we would be successful in this since everything  still seemed very green. Regardless, it was still very pleasant with the babbling creek right next to much of the path and lots of shade from the trees overhead.

As we continued on though, we started to see more yellows and other signs of fall.

And as we went up even further, more reds and oranges appeared too! Between the fall colors, the soft warm light filtering through the trees, and the creek spilling down over rocks, the scenery was almost magical.

Occasional openings through the trees gave us views of the colorful slopes to the side of us as well.

We also found a few snakes along the trail. At least a couple of them were definitely rattlesnakes. So, apparently a lot of rattlers like this canyon too.

The path also narrowed as we went and became increasingly overgrown. I am not sure how far up the canyon the actual trail exists, but it was getting more difficult to follow when we had to turn back about two miles up the canyon. It looked like only about the first mile of the trail is well used.

Nate's Birthday

This year for Nate's birthday, I wanted to surprise him with something that would be fun even though we didn't have much time for any celebration that day. So, the day beforehand, I prepared him a birthday cake in a can. I modified the label I found for free online to make it more personal, and I left it in the car for him to take to work the next day.

Luckily he liked it! He also liked the gift and card Austin made for him (with a little help).

Then, a couple weeks ago we made a really nice birthday dinner and had family over to celebrate. We celebrated my brother Nathan's birthday at the same time. I made a really delicious, and very rich, chocolate hazelnut cake. Then after dinner, we opened some gifts, of course.

I feel really blessed to have both of these guys in my life!

The Homestead

A couple weeks ago, on Friday, September 11, we headed out to Midway to spend some time with my family at The Homestead. We had a lot of fun just hanging out and relaxing there. That afternoon we went bowling in Heber. I am not a very good bowler, so I was very happy when I broke 100...

 

After coming back, we went for a short walk/hike, and enjoyed the beautiful fall colors!

My brother Allan and his wife Katie arrived soon after that, and we all went swimming. The weather couldn't have been better for the occasion, and we had fun racing across the pool, chicken fighting, and relaxing in the hot tub. Austin enjoyed playing in the pool too, and especially had fun with Aunt Rosanne and Aunt Stephanie.

After swimming, we all showered and had dinner at our condo. (Unfortunately, most of us got very cold showers and thus realized the condo must have a very small water heater.) Following dinner, Austin went to bed while my dad set his telescope up outside so we could all get a good look at some constellations and star clusters. Then we watched a movie together and went to bed.

The next morning we had a pancake breakfast and played some spikeball before heading off. We also took a couple pictures of everyone in front of the condo.

Instead of going straight home, we stopped by the Orbital ATK open house for a hot dog lunch and to tour Nate's workplace. We only get to see his workplace every couple years during such open houses.

Labor Day Weekend

We didn't do anything particularly fancy for Labor Day weekend this year, but we did get together one evening with Nate's siblings Melissa and Michael and their families. First, we played at the local park for awhile.

Then we came back to our house for dinner in our backyard. It was nice to have everyone over at our house this time; usually we are the ones driving to everyone else's place.

Austin eating a cookie with his cousins

Monday morning we went on another short hike with Austin. This time we headed up to Dooly Knob on Antelope Island. I am really glad Austin seems to enjoy hiking so much!

 
(Unfortunately, our volunteer photographer took pictures of us with an odd person popping up from the rock behind us.)